xx nothing but ashes, i breathe no more xx
by yourgreeneyes
Summary: In a moment, everything changes. In a moment of thoughtlessness, the world falls into darkness. Thoughts and reflections flick across the mind, and the outcome is excruciating. Yet utterly...peaceful. Death is peaceful, as Bella said. Life is harder.


**I've been looking in the mirror for so long.**

I wanted to snap it. Destroy all that stood in front of me. My reflection.

**That I've come to believe my soul's on the other side.**

Suddenly, the picture shifts to someone I shall never see again. My love. My Bella. Such a blurred picture of perfection.

**All the little pieces falling, shatter.**

Before I know it, my fist is colliding with the mirror. The shards of broken glass scatter around me. The hit and slide across my skin. I should be cut. But my skin is impenetrable. That mirror shouldn't have broken. I didn't hit it hard. But I am superhumanly strong. Which is what got me here in the first place.

**Shards of me,**

All I ever cared about. I would trade anything for her. And she's gone. Because I couldn't control myself. Because I was a weakling. Except…I wasn't. And that was the problem.

**Too sharp to put back together.**

How could I lose such control with her? How could I risk her life? I shouldn't have stayed, I should've left, regardless of how much it hurt. If I had stayed away, she'd still be alive. Her death. It was all my fault. I screwed up. I blew my hope to smithereens. I could be fixed. And neither could she.

**Too small to matter,**

For ninety years I lived without her, but once I have lived with her, I can't not. Someone so small as a girl is so much more. She is the world.

**But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces.**

And now, without her, I am nothing. I am broken. I am in pieces. I am gone. I am absolutely everything, but absolutely nothing. For she is all that I want. All that I have. For she is my soul. And without my soul, what am I?

**If I try to touch her,**

She is gone. I am gone. If I love her, is she still here? Is she still alive, but only in memories? If so, what is the point? I'll never see her, speak to her, hold her, _touch_ her, again. For she is gone and there is nothing left of her. Nothing but ashes.

**And I bleed,**

Without her, my life seeps out in trickles of nothingness.

**I bleed,**

Thundering death pours out of my being. And everyone around me just watches it happen. Watches my slow decline. Silence.

**And I breathe,**

A useless breath. Down my throat. Into my unused lungs. Back out. What's the point? I could just lie down - lie down and never get up and watch the clouds and rain and sun and moon and _years_ pass by above me. Just lay there and retreat into myself and never come back out.

**I breathe no more.**

I could just hold my breath and not care and be just like her - bury myself in the ground underneath a gravestone. In a coffin. Six feet below the surface. Never come back up. Be dead. Dead to the world. How much of a vampire do I sound like now, Bella?**Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.**

Edward, honey, a voice calls to me. It is not the voice I yearn for. It is not the voice I live for. That voice will be forever gone. Edward, honey, come hunt with us. Stop locking yourself in your room.

**Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.**

No, I reply, staring at the shards of mirror. I cannot look into my mother's eyes and see the pain she sees in me. Have fun, I tell her.

What happened in here? she asks. Edward?

Nothing, I tell her. I'll be fine. Go ahead.

The door shuts. Her footsteps retreat. She tells the rest I am staying. In a shard of glass I stare at my face. I see my black eyes, the stormy purple rings underneath my eyes. The nothingness in my features. I am dead.

**Lie to me,**

I walk away. I live my mess behind me and go to my piano. I haven't played it since that terrible moment. I will never play it again. But it taunts me. Something I once loved now kills me. I hate it. I remember she could watch me play for hours on end, in awe, in love, with me. How can I play it now?

**Convince me that I've been sick forever.**

I am a monster. She may deny it, but I am. Now she knows. I am a monster. I have always been a monster. I always will be a monster. Forever. Forever and ever and always and eternity. Without her. As a monster. Dying inside.

**And all of this,**

I will never be the same. The black gloss of that instrument will forever hurt me, pain me, _kill_ me. It's crashing into the wall, cracking and dying. Like her. Just like her. Cracking and dying. Just. Like. Her.

**Will make sense when I get better.**

STOP! I scream. JUST STOP! I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY. DON'T LEAVE ME. COME BACK.

I am forever without her. The piano, crashing, smashing, crying, dying. Gone. Broken. Bleeding. Bella.

**But I know the difference,**

_You're not a monster. You are mine. You are my angel,_ she once said. I know better. She believed the lie we built for humans. She believed what could never be true. She thought what could never be, and now she is gone for putting too much trust in me.

All. My. Fault.

**Between myself and my reflection.**

How can I look at myself in the window? I'm staring back at me, and wishing there was some other way to kill myself - no ripping and shredding and burning involved. Just a simple method to just die. So I can be with her forever.

**I just can't help but to wonder,**

What would it be like if I were human? If I wasn't abnormal? If I was natural? Just a normal boy, in Forks, falling in love with a normal girl with a serious talent for finding trouble? She would still be alive. She would still be in my arms. I would still be with her, forever. Without the implications it holds for me now.

**Which of us do you love.**

Jacob. I could smell him. He was coming. Was he sad? Was he coming to kill me? Would he please? And I wait, and there is a knock, and I go to answer it. I open the door, and there stands Jacob and two of the others.

Edward, he thinks, glaring at me. The other two glare at me. I stand before them, vulnerable, alone. Not caring.

Jacob, I say. Nice to see you again. I think, did she love him? More than she loved me? Was there some part of her that wished I hadn't returned? Had stayed away, so she could be with him?

Come in, I tell him. What can I do for you?

**So I bleed,**

You killed her, he accuses. I nod. There are no words to explain how I was feeling, how I watch pain flicker across his face. You mother fucker.

I know, I reply. Jacob…there are no words to explain just how terrible and low I am feeling. It feels like I have died myself. Watching her blood leave her body, her eyes go lifeless, hearing her spine break…it is beyond imaginable. And now all I want is for the thoughts and memories to die.

**I bleed,**

That's why we're here, one of the other two say. Embry. Bella had spoken about him. I am glad that Seth had not made it here. I am glad that Seth did not have to see my life ending. I hope that he is mad; I hope that he sides with the pack. I hope he does not defend me, because I should not be defended. I am a murderer. Have been and always will be.

**And I breathe,**

The high keening that I hear. They are werewolves already. They are phased and ripping at limbs. I hear the running footsteps of my family - they are returning. They hear it. I don't care. They will not make it.

Jacob rips at my chest. He rips at my arms.

**I breathe no...**

He tears at my neck while the third wolf, Paul, sets fire to the piano wood. It will burn as I will burn. I will burn with it. I will burn with Bella.

**Bleed,**

More keening. Even as I am ripped apart, I can still think. My instincts kick in, but I fight them. They urge me to reconnect. I will not. I will stay apart.

Jacob, I say. His black eyes stare at me hatefully. I know you hate me. I hate myself. But please…scatter my ashes with her, so I can be with her forever.

He nods his doggish head. He looks about to cry. A tear rolls down his fur.

**I bleed,**

Embry bites off half my leg. Into the fire. Other body parts follow.

**And I breathe,**

I hold my breath. I stay still. I let them rip me apart, just like I ripped her. Like Jacob's heart was ripped. Like she ripped my heart in half by dying. Like I ripped my heart for killing her.

**I breathe,**

Body parts flung. My family bursts through the wall, their eyes in a rage. Golden. They have fed. They look hatefully at the wolves, and spring. Tackle, kill, spring.

**I breathe-**

Jacob will not lose. He tears my torso off from my neck, and the keening hurts my ears and the pain hurts even more. I do not cry out. I watch as Paul bleeds and dies. Like Bella. They kill the wolves, but I look at them with pleading eyes. Jacob will live. They will leave him. For me. For Jacob has done what I needed him.

My head is last. Into the fire. The burning. Dying. Disintegrating. Memories of Bella racing through my mind. My mind, I can hear my family's thoughts. I hear them. Blurring. The sound. Dying away. Like me. Shadows creep across.

Darkness.

**I breathe no more.**


End file.
